I carved out a few hours this weekend to look at the wiper motor assembly, and made a little progress. I was able to unmount the motor from the windshield, link the arm up with the motor housing, attach the clip, and rotate the motor enough to get it close to the mount points. That was where things got difficult. The torque on the motor is enough that I couldn’t rotate it on all three axis to get each of the three bolts to go in cleanly. No amount of cajoling, pushing or pulling would give me the leverage I needed to get it in properly. I figure what they did at the factory was put the motor and arm in as one assembly and then link the arm up to the passenger’s wiper arm. I tried disconnecting the linkage there, but couldn’t disconnect the two arms from each other for love or money. Out of time and patience, I bolted the motor up tightly at one point, put the cowl on, and left it until spring.
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This evening after the sun went down, I cracked the cowl on Peer Pressure to start troubleshooting the wiper issue. I ran the engine up for about ten minutes in the afternoon when I got back from Harbor Freight; in the bag was a battery charger and a test light (along with an oil catchpan and an air fitting for my compressor).
Looking over the connector to the motor, I put the test light on it with the key at ACC and the wiper knob on low. After I found a consistent ground, the hot wires tested good. Puzzling.
I put my tester on it and got power in an acceptable range. More puzzling; it was looking like the motor was bad. I peeked under the cowl to size up the bolt positions, and…
…realized the wiper arm was sitting on the bottom of the inner cowl. Which meant it wasn’t connected at all. I reached in and verified it was completely loose. I cleaned the contacts in the connector with some sandpaper, hooked it back up, got back in the truck and turned the wipers on low. Immediately I heard the whirring of the motor. I’d never checked it with the engine off, so I celebrated with a smack to my own forehead.
Now the problem is getting the motor off the mount so that I can access the arm linkage enough to slide a spare clip on the housing. As I was coaxing the first of three bolts off the ladies called me in to dinner, so I tightened everything back up (the forecast is for 0% rain for the next couple of days), hauled all the tools inside, and called it a night.
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Last night I cleaned off my overloaded workbench, dug out my service manuals, and lined up three spare wiper motors I have in my stash. Right now the wipers in Peer Pressure are defunct, after three years of working without a problem.The stopped working when I was in Chestertown killing time with Brian waiting for the welder, and I got stupid and started fooling with the bulkhead connectors.
My troubleshooting workflow should look something like this:
- Pull the cowl cover off, disconnect the power lead to the motor, and test it for power.
- Check the bulkhead connector for power.
- Test the switch on the dash.
- Pull the motor itself, pull it apart, and see if it’s seized up.
But, because time is limited, I’m a curious guy, and I frequently do things out of order, I decided to pull a few of the motors I have apart to see how they work. I’m starting with one very clean motor and two that have more miles (and grease) on them, but all three are identical. I cleaned the gunk off two of them, cracked the manual, and got started.
Disassembly starts with the switch side, where the arm connects to the housing. Pulling the top off the housing reveals two contacts and a gapped brass plate, which is how the the motor handles delay. Under the plate is a round plastic toothed gear which fits into a worm screw connected directly to the motor itself.
Pulling the cover off the other side of the motor reveals both brushes and the commutator, and inside the housing, the field coils. The clean motor looks almost brand new, while the second one contained the amount of dirt I’d expect from a 30-year-old truck.
I left all the grease in place, closed the motors back up, and decided to wait until I pick up a cheap battery charger to bench test everything with 12 volts. Harbor Freight has one for $20, which fits my budget perfectly, and I may run out and pick it up this weekend.
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Now that things are getting cold outside, I’ve got to focus on things I can do inside. One thing that’s been bugging me since they stopped working are my wipers, which has proven to be problematic when it rains. I’ve got two spare wiper motors in my stash to work with and a can of electrical cleaner; I need some bearing grease to repack the interior and a clear set of instructions as to how.
1. My first clues about wiring are on the Binder Planet here:
It is a three wire motor with the common being the internal ground.
The wires to and from the Scout switch are:
82 +12 hot
82A +12 after going through breaker, feeds the park switch on the wipers, ( Green wire on Wiper plug) and hot into the switch.
82 B feeds high speed on the wipers, ( Black wire on wiper plug.)
82 C feeds low speed on wipers, (Red wire on wiper plug. )
A 187 goes to washer motor, on this setup, I have here, it`s a green wire, the rest of the wires are black..
The Scout switch in low speed position closes the circuit from 82 A to both 82 B and 82 C wires,
In high speed it closes the circuit from 82 A to 82 B only.
Also,
Check for frozen/binding linkage, especially the wiper pivots. Also running a separate ground from the motor case to the body helps, lots of times the ground path through the motor mounts isn’t very good and gets fixed accidentaly during motor replacement.
2. Key information for inside bench testing is here:
I would clean the inside good with electric parts cleaner. Then bench test it with a battery charger.
Trickle charge 2 amp for low, and 10 amp fast charge for high.
So, if and when I ever get some free time, this will be my next project.
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I got a little time this afternoon to drill some holes and tap for screws, and the result is a side mirror that I can actually use:
It’s about freakin time. The whole setup is really set up for a more upright window pillar, so the final angle I wound up with pointed the mirror outboard and upwards. I wrapped the end in a rag and bent it with a pair of channel locks, and wound up with something useable. While I was at the hardware store I added one of those little rounded puck mirrors for blind spots.
Update: Here’s a shot from the driver’s seat.
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This weekend, I finally solved the mystery of the rear bench seat. When last I’d attempted to swap out the bench that came with Peer Pressure (a fantastically ugly, ripped pillowed vinyl) I was stymied by two latches that hook around posts mounted on the inner wall of the wheel well. The latches were too high and didn’t catch the posts, making the seat an unsafe proposition for any passengers I might be transporting. (in the event of a sudden stop, the seat would most likely shift forward, squishing passengers between the seat and the seatbelts they were buckled into).
Saturday evening, while moving three benches around the garage, I finally noticed something missing from the original bench, and everything suddenly made sense. IH mounted two feet on the bottom rear of each seat, which propped it up off the floor by about 2″. These feet were missing from the bench the truck came with—they had been knocked off with a hammer. I reasoned that once the feet were gone, the seat sat lower on the floor and the latches were able to swing under the posts correctly. So I busted out the POR-15 and painted up two mounting brackets in preparation for Sunday afternoon.
After I’d knocked the feet off of one of the spare benches (no pillowtop, thank GOD), I sat it in the bed, adjusted the sides, and bolted it into place just as easy as could be. The only thing left to do now is scoot the Tuffy console forward about two inches so that fold becomes fold-and-tumble. And, after unbolting the set of belts it came with, I can get rid of the original bench and reclaim that much more space in the garage.
Sunday afternoon I took a quick trip down to visit Brian H, who has taken a Sawzall to his driver’s floor, and we shot the breeze for a half hour or so. He’s making adjustments to his cab before welding in all new metal—floor mounts, rocker, the whole works. What he’s got done so far looks good, and his welds are really coming along. He’s trying to get her back on the road for next weekend’s trip to Bennett’s farm…I’m pulling for him.
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I haven’t gotten much done with the Scout lately, but I’ve been slowly amassing parts. One thing that has been crawling closer to completion is the radio install, but we’re not quite there yet. The DIN sleeve is in the faceplate but it needs to be trimmed a little more to fit. The head unit itself needs a source of constant power to retain the programmed memory, so I have to find a way to get a 12V wire from the battery to the dashboard. Thankfully there’s a female pigtail off the battery connector that I can tap into, so I’m going to pick up a length of 12 gauge wire and a box of connectors, pull the inline fuse from the old radio, and run it into the dashboard. I also have to rewire the rear speakers with something heavier.
While I had a little time with Finn Sunday afternoon, I replaced a couple more bulbs in the dashboard, but the one I swapped out for the left indicator light isn’t working. It also happens to be the most difficult to get in without disassembling the entire speedo assembly.
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Last week, I got a small package of J-hooks from SSS, which should complete the list of parts I need to drop the gas tank and install the poly replacement. Well, except for some kind of catchbasin for the gas I’ve already got. I’ll probably either siphon it into the Saturn or just go buy a Rubbermaid container.
I also found a post on the Binder Planet which has some more detailed instructions for running constant power to the head unit; unscrewing the fuse box should reveal two bus bars, one with switched power and one with constant. They each will accept female spade connectors, which means all I should need is a length of wire and the proper spade connector.
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Looks like someone boosted my tunes
Last night I finished grinding a dash cover plate down enough to fit a DIN-9 sleeve for my spare Kenwood radio. I stole out into the garage at 10:30 and pulled the Wal-Mart special, marked off the relevant wires, and test-fitted the Kenwood. Unfortunately, there was no juice. I think part of the problem is that the new deck needs constant power and switched power from the key; I’ve got switched power but noplace to draw constant power from the battery. So next I have to figure out how to make that happen.
In other news, I ordered two replacement J-hooks from SSS yesterday in preparation for my gas tank swap. Now that the weather is calming down, I need to set aside a day to make that happen.
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I’m suffering some new starting woes this week, which have me in the dumps. I swapped out the positive battery cable on Sunday thinking I might be able to fix my intermittent starting issues, but when everything was hooked up and ready, I got no juice to the starter at all. I’ve been getting loads of help from the Binder Planet from guys who have much more experience than me, and I’m slowly making progress on a diagnosis. Tonight I’m going to try jumping the solenoid to see if that might be my issue, and the troubleshooting will continue.
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